Public Note #5 – In Defense of the Special Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances

The Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns Commission for the Defense of Human Rights goes public to defend the Special Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances, created by Law 9,140/95, the first official initiative to acknowledge as dead persons those who disappeared due to participation or accusation of participation in political activities, from September 2, 1961, to August 15, 1979. It consists of a Commission of the Brazilian State and not of a particular administration, established to take account of the universal principle of reparation for hundreds of family members of those who died and/or disappeared due to political reasons.

The Special Commission had already proclaimed the accountability of the Brazilian State for these crimes, with the support of all Presidents of the Republic since then, a measure endorsed in numerous judicial sentences. The current work of the Special Commission is mainly to make efforts to locate the bodies of missing persons, in the event of evidence as to where they may be located, given that in the recent past, the Ministry of Defence and the Brazilian Army have also been participating in these efforts.

Brazil has already been internationally condemned by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (as can be seen from the cases of Gomes Lund and Vladimir Herzog) to continue these efforts. The work is just not advancing faster because not everyone – civil and military authorities – who still may have information about the whereabouts of the bodies communicated it to the Commission. This Commission still has an important mission to fulfill today. It must reveal to hundreds of mothers, fathers, brothers, children, and grandchildren where the remains of their missing relatives are. It is a legal duty of the State and corresponds to the right of these family members, which is reinforced by court decisions. Anyone who unduly obstructs these efforts commits misconduct.

The President of the Republic, whether by dismantling the Commission, or even before, by depriving it of the resources to act, under the pretext of now calling itself “a right-wing government”, ignores the Democratic Rule of Law and the need to comply with the law and judicial decisions, in order to govern the country for all Brazilians.

The right to reparation and the truth will prevail. This government will end.

Photo: Cemitério de Perus / Agência Brasil